Why Your Child May Not Join Grade 9 Next Year

Learners entering Grade 9 in January will encounter significant challenges, including teacher shortages and inadequate infrastructure, as the government seeks solutions.

Junior schools are particularly under-staffed, with a mismatch between teachers’ skills and the needs of the curriculum. Teachers Service Commission (TSC) CEO Nancy Macharia informed the National Assembly Education Committee that funding has been secured to hire 20,000 additional contract teachers for Grades 7, 8, and 9, raising the total to 76,928 teachers across 20,000 schools.

This recruitment adds roughly one teacher per school, falling short compared to 216,000 in primary schools and 125,000 in secondary schools, as secondary institutions will only have learners in Forms 2, 3, and 4 next year.

Macharia acknowledged the crisis, stating, “We have to find ways to address it.” MPs expressed concerns about science subjects being taught by arts teachers lacking proper qualifications. Macharia noted a severe shortage of science teachers, with many TSC job postings failing to attract applicants.

“Arts teachers are the majority graduating from universities, making it difficult to fill science positions,” she explained, highlighting that science classes often resort to makeshift teaching methods.

The lack of laboratories in public junior schools further complicates science education, jeopardizing the goals of the Competency-Based Curriculum Framework aimed at guiding 60% of learners toward STEM pathways.

Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba suggested that retooling could help address the teacher shortage. He confirmed plans to recruit 20,000 teachers by January 2025 and to transition contract teachers to permanent positions.

With only two months until Grade 9 begins, the Ministry of Education has built just 3,500 of the 11,000 planned classrooms. In August, it was announced that 18,000 classrooms would be constructed to accommodate the new learners, with 11,000 from the ministry and 7,000 through the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF).

Ogamba reported that 3,500 classrooms are completed, with 7,500 more underway, and assured that all Grade 9 classrooms would be ready by January 2025.